1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a package for a product and a method of reinforcing a consumer""s awareness of a product symbol, such as a logo, and its association with the product. The invention also relates to subliminal teaching of an association between a product and a logo or symbol associated with it. More particularly, the invention relates to providing an embossed product logo or symbol on a type of package known as a hinged lid box that is especially suited for the packaging of cigarettes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Animals, especially large animals, are of great interest to humans. In addition, they are highly symbolic. Animals represent human qualities, such as wisdom (owl) or bravery (lion), and are commonly chosen to represent a group, such as a sports team, or a nation, for example, a bald eagle for America. A symbolic animal image is referred to herein as a xe2x80x9ctotem.xe2x80x9d Totems are often used as product symbols, logos or trademarks. The tiger, for example, is used as a logo or trademark for well known brands of gasoline and cereal. A large predator like a tiger is very effective at capturing a consumer""s attention and imagination, and thus is an effective logo.
One goal of advertising is to make consumers aware of a brand and to help them remember it. To accomplish this goal, a logo must become firmly associated with the product in the mind of the consumer. This means that the consumer must learn to associate the logo with the product.
Learning requires attention and repetition. To forge an association between a product and a logo, the consumer should perceive both together, and repeatedly. Because animals attract attention, totem logos offer more opportunities to reinforce brand awareness than other types of logos. However, the attention attracted by a totem, or any other logo, will not increase brand awareness and sales unless the consumer learns to associate the totem with the product. Building brand awareness is a teaching process for the manufacturer and a learning process for the consumer.
In the prior art, logos have been placed on products and/or their packaging, thus bringing the product and logo into close juxtaposition. But the association learning process has not always been optimized because, in general, the consumer has not always been presented with the logo and the product simultaneously or juxtaposed as closely as possible.
Cigarettes are often imprinted with a logo on the paper wrapper or filter paper. However, this logo is typically concealed by the packaging until the cigarette is removed. therefrom. Moreover, the consumer is likely not to even notice the logo while in the process of lighting the cigarette or during smoking. Logos are also typically placed on all sides of most cigarette packages. Despite the many logos, trademarks and designs used to create product recognition, they may not be noticed by the consumer simultaneously with seeing the cigarette product per se, because the consumer""s attention is focused at the open end of the pack, where the cigarettes are located. When extracting a cigarette, a consumer may not look directly at the package and the consumer""s hand may partly cover the outside of the package, obscuring any logo located there.
It is advantageous that the consumer""s attention not be distracted when the package is opened and the product is seen for the first time; this should be a moment in which the product is fully appreciated. To best forge an association between a logo and the product, the logo should be seen when the consumer first looks at the product itself, that is, when the package is first opened. The opening of the pack is a time of high product awareness, but in the case of prior art logo placement, it is a time when the association between the logo and the product is quite low. Because brand logo association is a learning process, it would be desirable to place the logo so as to bring it in the field of view of the consumer each time the package is opened for extraction of a product.
The prior art does not provide these advantages. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,148 issued to Evers discloses a hinged lid cigarette box in which the innerframe has an extension which protrudes upwardly to partially cover the cigarettes and may include printing, embossing and/or debossing. This extension is removable by tearing along a perforation, and is intended to be used as a coupon. Evers does not disclose any logo on the coupon. If the coupon were to be imprinted with a logo, it would not repetitively teach the consumer to associate the product and logo because the coupon covers the cigarettes, preventing the logo and product from being seen together, and furthermore, is intended to be torn away from the package. It also distracts the consumer since it places an impediment in the way of extracting the product from the package.
The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art by printing or embossing a totem or other product symbol non-removably onto a package in such a position that the consumer will see the symbol and the product simultaneously, at the moment of opening the package to extract one of the products, and each time the package is opened and closed.
An object of the present invention is to increase sales of a product, particularly cigarettes, by repeatedly reinforcing the mental association between a product and a totem, emblem, brand name, letter or letters, word or words,""symbol, logo, or trademark of the product.
Preferably, the logo or totem is of a size sufficient to be readily recognized by the consumer as a product symbol and is represented in plural, for example, as a repeating pattern. In this way, according to a method aspect of the invention, the consumer is taught repeatedly to associate the product symbol with the product, not only by reason of the repeating pattern, but also by association each time the package is opened. Thus, learning is easier and the association is strengthened.
According to the present invention, the logo or totem is disposed on the package immediately adjacent a portion of the product which is most identifiable with the product as a whole. In the case of hinged lid cigarette packages, the logo or totem is preferably placed on a non-removable portion of the package closely adjacent the cigarette product so as to be visible continuously and simultaneously with the product when the hinged lid is opened.
The foregoing objects of the invention are achieved in a preferred embodiment of a hinged lid cigarette box by placing one or a plurality of the totems, logos, or symbols immediately adjacent the cutout portion of a conventional xe2x80x9cinnerframexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ccollarxe2x80x9d of the hinged lid cigarette box. The cutout exposes the cigarette filter and its connection to the paper-wrapped cigarette rod when the package is opened. In this way, the logo or logos appear immediately next to that portion of the cigarettes which is most identifiable as a cigarette.
The hinged lid cigarette package is preferably a semi-rigid paperboard or xe2x80x9ccrush-proofxe2x80x9d type of box. This type of hinged lid box typically is constructed with a paperboard insert known as an innerframe or collar, which includes a generally U-shaped cutout through which lateral side portions of at least some of the cigarettes in the package are visible. Preferably, the logo or logos are disposed in a repeating pattern along the edge or edges of the innerframe cutout. Most preferably, the logo or logos are embossed into a non-removable portion of the material of the innerframe. Embossment advantageously provides tactile as well as visual stimulation, adds visual impact, and increases the consumer""s attention, as well as the rapidity at which the consumer learns to associate the product with the logos, totems or symbols. As used herein, the term xe2x80x9cnon-removablexe2x80x9d portion means a portion of the package or innerframe that is not designed, constructed or intended to be removable as distinguished from a portion of the package that is intended to be removable, such as the coupon disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,148.
In a conventional hinged lid cigarette package, a relatively small vertical portion of the innerframe is exposed between the upper edge of the front panel of the box and the edge of the cutout in the innerframe. Accordingly, the logo should have a relatively short vertical height. One sort of symbol which might be printed or embossed on the innerframe is the brand name of the product, e.g., CAMEL. To be most closely associated with the product, this brand name is preferably restricted in width to correspond to the width of the innerframe cutout, that is, where the cigarettes are exposed when the lid is opened. However, in a preferred embodiment, several logos or totems, each of approximately the same area or size as the cross-sectional area or diameter of a cigarette, are placed in a row along the front panel of the innerframe. In this way, the association of the cigarette with the logo or totem is most easily taught to the consumer and each cigarette appears to be xe2x80x9clabeledxe2x80x9d by its own totem.
Another advantageous feature of the invention relates to enhancing the consumer""s perception of quality of the product as well as the product symbol or logo even during closing of the hinged lid of the cigarette box. According to this aspect of the invention, the rear corners of the innerframe are radiused or rounded so as to minimize the possibility that when the lid is closed, it will hang up on the innerframe corners and either irritate the consumer or distract the consumer from viewing the product logo or symbol.